


Come Morning

by sunaga



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Dream Sharing, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Psychic Bond, X-Men Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaga/pseuds/sunaga
Summary: Everything begins with his fall from the roof of a twelve-story building: his telepathy, the connection to the mutant community, and the dreams of a man he's never met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [X-Men RBB 2012 Art Masterpost 'Dead Flags RGB'](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/415832) by celadonite. 



> Celadonite's inspiring art (who also did the banners) can be found [here](https://celadonite.livejournal.com/53712.html) It's 2018, and her red background can still be found as my desktop background. :)
> 
> A detailed list of notes and thank yous will be posted with chapter 5, the playlist.

On a cold May morning Charles Xavier falls from the roof of a twelve-story building.

* * *

The world is sleet and chrome. Smooth and endless, he realizes this is the sky and this is the edge of a building and he is _falling --_

The world splinters bit by bit. It feels like the sky is breaking, like his skull is being crushed against the building before he even hits the ground.

Splinters,

splinters,

 _splinters_ like roots spreading and he _knows_ \--

He gasps for air, tries to grab onto something, but the world keeps sliding past him and then --

"Hey."

\-- _oh_ (each snarl) _God_ (comes into him) _I don't_ (like the air) _want_ (pressure) _to_ (that creates twisters) _die_.

(complimentary like how twisters gain speed over water)

" _Hey_."

Pressure against his shoulders, indentations into his muscle and bones, not the asphalt he expects, but warm and giving and they feel like hands. He opens his eyes and is greeted by the sight of a nose. The hands let go, and Charles' head rolls, and --

* * *

Charles wakes in a hospital bed to the faces of an astounded staff and the wonderful news that he has suffered no injuries, only some slight lacerations. They can't figure out how the lacerations occurred. They know it must be from the mesh canopy he crashed through, but all the equations say the mesh -- from six stories down, draped between two buildings to stop the stooping pigeons -- should not have helped him. They leave it unsaid that his brain should be splattered against the pavement, that his family should be making arrangements for his funeral.

Charles is grateful and doesn't question his luck.

"We'd like to run additional tests, Mr. Xavier."

"Doctor." Charles tries to read the nametag, not remembering the introduction he received upon waking, but can't do it; the pain in his head is splitting. "You said I was in good health. You'd already done tests." Charles understands scientific curiosity. It makes the world spin, progress happen, and he loves it. He feels terrible though. He can't decide if this is the worst migraine he's ever had, or the worst hangover.

The doctor nods. "That's right."

"Then, I'd like to go home." He's sorry to turn them down, but he wants to go home, plug in the hot water heater, and take out the box of loose leaf tea he only takes out in desperate times.

As a courtesy to the staff, he waits until the drip he's on runs out before checking himself out against medical advice.

* * *

Charles Xavier Interview:

Campus Police: Let's go over this again, why were you at Sather Hall so early?

Charles Xavier: I had a lab report; my partner couldn't make it in on time to finish it. It involved a titration, and we didn't want to have to start over.

CP: What happened once you entered Sather?

CX: I went to the fifth floor lab. Sean was typing up the lab report and was going to send it to me, but the printer wasn't working. It always takes fifteen minutes to reboot and be ready to print again, so I went up to the roof.

CP: What did you do up there?

CX: I looked at the city streets.

CP: And you fell.

CX: Listen officer, I understand you're just doing your job, but there's no need to insinuate I was intoxicated, or otherwise impaired. You can check the doctors' reports. The only thing I was on was large amounts of caffeine like every other student here.

CP: And you fell.

CX: How many times do I have to tell you? I don't remember, ok? _I don't remember_.

* * *

The first week after the accident is normal enough. People ask Charles lots of questions, and he gets lots of stares, but he hopes it'll abate soon enough. He hates standing out. He wonders if he can manufacture another big occurrence to distract and redirect their attention.

At first, he doesn't dream at all. Or maybe, he just doesn't remember, because his alarm is loud, he's short on sleep, and he has to deal with quelling his new-found celebrity along with his lab reports.

The first dream he remembers is just a man's face, and he thinks the face is familiar.

By the fifth time he dreams of the same man, he begins thinking it odd. He starts keeping a notebook and pencil by his bed in order to keep a log. He does some searches online too, but their solutions -- attempting to lucid dream, laying the name of a loved one under your pillow, putting what you want to dream about under your pillow, sleeping longer -- don't seem likely to succeed. He does like their idea of getting more sleep though, so that's what he does.

For the next few nights he remembers what he can and scribbles it down.   A week goes by with no results though, so he throws the notepad across his bed in frustration, only to overshoot and the pad goes sliding across the floor.  
  
Grumbling about cold feet and warm sheets, he slides out of bed and onto the wood floor. He bends over, setting the notepad in his bureau. He drops his pen, then, and as he goes to pick that up, he hits his head on the still open drawer.

Cursing, and trying to rub out the sharp pain in his head, he turns out the lamp. He shuffles some books across his nightstand to set his alarm, and then he buries himself under the covers and goes to sleep.

* * *

Although all the trees in the park are barren and the grass frosty, the lakeside is warm, inviting, and entirely unfrozen. This seems entirely impossible, but Charles doesn't mind. He'll leave the trees to their business and take the water thank you very much.

"You had to bring the summer weather with you, didn't you?" The male voice sounds entirely sour.

"It's my dream," Charles replies. "I'll do whatever I please." He takes off his shoes and steps into the warm water. He wonders what will happen if he brings the water to where the trees are.   Will it frost?

"I like winter. There's beauty in simplicity."

 _Home, belonging, breath on the air and mittens holding a spoon singingsinginghumming for cocoa._ Charles' never thought of winter that way, but he dismisses it as another quirk of the dream. He dips his hands into the water, watching the light on the ripples.

There's an indignant huff from behind. "If you're going to be irate about it, I'd rather you'd just up and away from here, if you please," Charles states. He turns around, hands wet, and sees the man whose face he keeps dreaming of.

Slightly taller than him, he'd look like a runner if he had sneakers on beneath his pants. And, well, the turtleneck isn't very athletic looking, although it is quite flattering and makes him _look_ athletic.

"Who are you?" Charles asks out of curiosity. He's not worried about this man; he feels very trustworthy, like something long-lost but entirely familiar. He wonders where he drew inspiration for the man from his mind.

The man lets out an exasperated sigh, letting his weight roll forward. He places his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, revealing a strip of skin between denim and black fabric. "How many times are we going to go through this? I'm Erik, and you're Charles. You're a pre-med -- I'm sorry, _post-bac_ \-- student, and you like warm weather." He sneers the last bit.

Even though Erik is a figment of his own imagination, Charles is surprised he knows all this. Although, Charles wonders why he would imagine anyone who doesn't like summer.

"I'm not your make-believe friend." Erik sounds irate and exhausted.   "You're a mutant. Can't you make it a point to _remember_ all this? I would like to get further each night than greetings before you -- "

Charles tries to remember what word Erik just used but can't. There's just static and he can't _hear_ and his head is splintering again and --

The ground falls away and he feels his mind breaking apart ( _again_ ), reaching for something to grab onto --

_Exasperation. Not/yet again. Stay through one dream? Note: Try different word, maybe mind re--_

Static fills his bursting ears, and right before it fills up his world, he experiences:

 _Not just sympathy? Would like/will you remember this_ _time?_

* * *

Charles goes to class like he isn't possibly losing it. He settles in and delights in the normalcy of finding his seat in the lecture hall, defending it from other students, unpacking his supplies, and clicking his pen as he waits for the professor to arrive fifteen minutes late as always.

He taps his heel in time with the Top 40 song he heard on the radio on his way here. The girl who takes a seat next to him arrives in a flurry of jangling bracelets and necklaces. She desperately needs a pen; it's the fifth she's lost this week. She suspects it's her boyfriend stealing them and that it's his weird way of saying he loves her. Charles hands her his, and she looks at him in open relief and surprise.

"Thanks. I guess I was a bit too obvious sorting through my bag wasn't I?" She taps the pen against her tangerine skirt. Charles feels a bit dour next to her in his grey sweater.

"No," he says in surprise, "I didn't see you do it at all actually."

* * *

"What are you still doing in my dreams?" Charles has been trying to stop the dreams, stop this slow onset of madness; he thinks of other things before he goes to bed, drinks warm milk, attempts a brief meditation. But he keeps dreaming.

They're at a children's playground this time. Charles recognizes the swings from the park near his house when he lived in the suburb. The yellow and blue checkered seats are pretty distinct. The slide, in the shape of a dragon's yawn, is not a part of this park at all though, nor is the vibrating swing set.

"That's what I should be asking," the man replies, but Charles just talks over him.

"I know I have to have seen your face in a crowd before, and I honestly don't remember, but why would my mind pick yours as an avatar? What am I trying to tell myself?" he muses to himself.

"Does everything revolve around you?"

"Why wouldn't it? It's my head." Charles kicks his feet harder, and lets himself swing, but the swing suddenly stops. Charles regards the chains, shaking them between his fists, wondering what happened.

The man rolls his eyes. "It's mine too, and it's neither and both of ours. An acknowledgement of that would be excellent. And my name is Erik. Can you remember that for once?"

"Why, of course, it's rude not to know names." And then Erik gives his swing a hard push and Charles' swinging as if he never lost momentum.

As much as he would like these dreams to end, if he's going to keep meeting the man, he really ought to learn his name. He makes it a point to repeat _Erikerikerikerik_ to himself as the night wears on and uses his name as much as possible, trying to remember.

* * *

Charles turns in his lab report to Hank, the TA for the class. It's a post-bac class, and Hank's an underclassmen. Quite a few of the post-bacs are upset a bright and outstanding young man -- who can barely look them in the eye out of shyness -- like Hank has the power of grade over them. Charles rather likes him. Talking about real world applications of class work is fascinating, and Hank is happy to supply how third world countries use their material.

 "Charles, are you all right?"

Charles blinks. "Yes," but he draws out the syllable. That's all he needs to keep Hank talking.

"You've been nodding off in class. Are you sleeping well? Lack of sleep can be an indication of deeper-seated anxieties, and with all the years of med school ahead of you --" Hank adjusts his glasses with one hand, and leans against the lab table with the other.

"Thank you Hank, but I'm fine." He's not lying.

"Ok. Well." Hank swings his lab chair back to the stack of books he's grading with one push of his long legs. "Let me know if something's up."

"Up?"

Hank shrugs. "You know."

* * *

Throughout the dreams, Charles realizes Erik is extraordinary. At first he thinks it's just a side-effect of the dream, but Erik draws metal to him like a magnet and shapes it as he pleases. Charles asks him about it.

Erik says, "Of course I can. I'm... different."

Charles can feel some emotion from Erik, something like obviousness, almost like words, but can't place them.

One of them has to be off their rocker; Charles bets it’s him. They always said pre-med students have a breakdown at some point in their careers, and it looks like this is his.

* * *

Erik stands on the precipice and the image is familiar. Even though Charles can't remember all the dreams he must have had to create the lingering memory, he asks, "What are you trying to do?"

"They say I should be able to fly. Magnetic waves." He peers over the edge and gestures with his hands. The wind blows large gusts against him, and he'd look like a brooding Masterpiece Theatre hero if he had a long coat.

"They?" Charles pulls his coat closer around him and wishes the lapels had buttons he could fasten around his neck to keep out the cold.

He turns his head. "There are others like us."

 _Us,_ Charles mouths, unsure what Erik means.

* * *

His lab partner, Sean, who's in the nursing program, talks to him about the girl he likes.

"If I ask her out, do you think she'll go out with me?"

The mess hall is loud with dishes clattering, the yell of orders, and students in the midst of the lunch rush. Charles thinks about it, looks at the girl in question. She's wearing a blouse with paisley print. He feels dizzy and replies, "Yes. Give her chrysanthemums too, she likes those."

There's a girl in a leather jacket staring at him with narrowed eyes, right next to the ice cream machine a few feet to their right. Charles excuses himself, and spares her a glance as he shoulders past the door, rubbing his temples.

* * *

Charles has seen the girl from the mess hall around campus before. She's an economics major, now that he thinks about it. She approaches him with her arms crossed in front of her chest, holding textbooks that apparently her shoulder bag won't fit. Her boots are loud against the pavement.

She maneuvers her books, and hands him a card.

"What is this?"

She looks down at the card and then back to him. "What does it look like?"

"I don't understand." It's a plain white card.

She stares at him. "It's for people like us."

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean..."

"How many people do you think know Nora's favorite flower are chrysanthemums?"

He's thrown by the non-sequitur. "Excuse me?"

"Only her high school friends know about the chrysanthemums, and everyone feels too guilty to ever talk about it, let alone _tell_ anyone.

"When you figure things out, contact us."

He's left standing dumbly with the card, and as she walks away he realizes he doesn't know her name. A quick look at the card and a flip of it shows her name's not on it.

"What's your name, Miss...?" he calls down the empty, but slowly filling corridor.

He hears her reply as loudly as if she were next to him, and not halfway across. "Angel Salvadore. You would know if you paid any attention."

* * *

Fellowship of Men  
839.755.6890  
jekyll@gmail.com

_tell them spitfire is your handler_

* * *

"Do you ever have dreams where you're a superhero and it's your destiny to save the world?"

"Do they include spandex and costumes in terrible colors?" is Erik's dry reply.

They're playing chess in a plaza with a fountain full of quacking ducks to their left. There's a bread shop behind Charles, and a shoe repair behind Erik. The chess pieces are magnetic and came with the set. Charles is sure this doesn't happen in real life; the pieces would be long gone in a few minutes.

"You're no fun," Charles needles. "But no, really."

Erik leans forward with folded hands. "Just because we're different doesn't mean we're some comic book hero out to save everyone. Just worry about saving yourself."

"That sounds terribly lonely."

"That's _survival_. How else do you think people like us still exist? I don't dream normally anymore." He sounds bitter. Charles recoils. Erik looks surprised and makes an attempt to fix his mistake, laying his hands flat on board.

It doesn't work.

Although Charles thinks he's striking up a friendship with Erik -- regardless of his fictitiousness or not -- Erik obviously doesn't feel the same.

The ducks fly away, and all the chess pieces are knocked over.

* * *

"Thanks Charles! She really loved the chrysanthemums." Sean slings his arm around his new girlfriend, grinning like a fool. He brought her by to show her off, and she looks uncomfortable with the attention. She keeps fidgeting with the gold broach on her blazer.

She looks at Charles in dismay. "How did you know that?"

"Errr, I guessed?" Charles shuffles his backpack around in nervousness.

_Never told anyone about that. Leilagirlwomanlove smiling in the sunroom, facesmoothBLANK after the homophobes -- Never told anyone except her sister --_

"Leila's sister didn't tell me anything!" he insists.

Her gaze grows livid. "What the fuck is this," she hisses. She'd yell if the student union wasn't full of students. "This isn't funny." She shoves Sean, shoots Charles a dirty look, and stalks away. The amount of hate rolling off her is staggering, and Charles knows this woman will never think of him without this venomous distaste.

Sean watches her walk away for a few moments, and then turns to Charles to ask, "Dude, what did you _do_ to her?"

"I just... she said Leila's sister would've known and -- "

"Charles, man, she didn't _say_ anything." He turns on his Converse shoes and jogs after her.

Charles feels sick.

* * *

"I can read minds. Among other things," Charles says that night. He stands in front of Erik, who's sitting comfortably in a rocking chair.

"Yes. I was hoping you'd figure it out. The dream kept blurring whenever I brought it up." Erik continues to work with the satchel full of scrap metal. He works at it as if he were whittling wood, but instead, he shapes the metal. He's making an animal today.

"It turns to static for me."

"To each their own." Erik's hands run over the shape and then a long, slender tail takes shape.

"So... It’s... normal, then?"

"Being a telepath?" Erik's face tenses as a snout forms, but then the metal snaps. He selects a new piece from between his ankles to start again. "Depends how strong you are."

"No, I mean, being a... having these powers, that is."

Erik looks at him with a sigh. He sets down the lump of metal between his open thighs. "Yes. Being a mutant is normal."

"Are these dreams part of being a mutant?"

Erik picks up the metal again and quickly shapes the tail. This time, he's more patient with the snout. "It is for you it seems."

"So you're... real, then. You exist outside of here, walking down the street somewhere."

Erik looks the same, but hurt leaks from him. Erik may control the play of emotions across his face, but Charles is learning that when he isn't wound tight, he can feel the current of emotions lapping against him.

"I don't regret... For all I miss dreaming, I also enjoy this." _Being (here?) with you._ Erik adds fur, whiskers, shapes the eyes.

Charles hears the apology in it. "Thank you. So do I. And I'm sorry I didn't... You're real now, I get that."

Erik shakes his head. _Hope, disbelief._ He hands Charles the animal. Charles looks into his cupped palms, and a metal rat peers up at him.

* * *

THE SILVER TRUMPET  
your newspaper since 1839

 **City remembers**  
Families still mourn dead  
By Ana McGough  
AMcG@SilverTrumpet.com  
      Marking the fifteenth anniversary of the Time Bomber, victims, friends, and families gathered in honor of those killed in the ten buildings destroyed during the Bomber's five month spree. Many continue to express their disappointment with the police who were unable to apprehend the Bomber....


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles learns more about his powers, and the man of his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A portion of this chapter was meant to be formatted like a Livejournal post, which also included some Easter egg thank yous. I couldn't figure out the CSS required to make it look like LJ, so you can see it as originally formatted [here](https://nagasasu.livejournal.com/132440.html).

Things become easier. The dreams are clearer and Charles can remember them as if they were waking memories. He can see more in the dreams. The world broadens beyond the horizon and he and Erik can explore whole cities and nature preserves.

With Charles' new willingness to believe the dreams, he and Erik spend time changing the landscapes. They learn it takes the two in tandem to change the dream, otherwise the dream falls apart, but sometimes that's preferable to the nightmares.  
  
Charles dreams of empty houses with never ending rooms, with doors that lead to more empty rooms, and locked doors that hide monsters. Erik dreams of fire and explosions, metal burning so brightly it melts and peels to reveal burning flesh. And even though the fear is not their own, the fear of being alone, of the burning flesh lingering in their nose, becomes their own.

"Change it, Charles."

Erik is grasping Charles' face, he can feel it, but all he sees are white cloths over furniture and light slowly creeping into rooms musty with disuse and --

"I'm thinking of a park. You know it. I like the cold air, you like the sun warm. You always like having a pond, or a lake, a small ocean damn it. I like the trees and grass."

Charles gets flashes of all these things as Erik talks about them. He grasps onto the images and holds them, building off of them. He adds tile around the pond, ducks to it, clear water to see the stones on the bottom, and sun warm enough to give sunburn.

"There you go."

Charles opens his eyes and Erik stands across from him, the absence of his hands apparent in the way his cheeks are cold in the sun.

* * *

And sometimes their dreams go like this: "Why is there a Christmas tree? You made the park _summer_." _Agitation._ Charles doesn't understand why this of all things would make Erik upset.

"Because I like Christmas. I thought it would fit with your incessant desire to put snow on the trees. There's nothing prettier than a Christmas tree lightly dusted in snow. Well, except maybe a cake from Lili's Patisserie..."

Erik grunts.

There's a small menorah tucked away, almost out of sight, on a table cluttered with the metalwork Erik brings. Charles doesn't notice it until the dream's end, but even if he'd seen it earlier, Erik's face would've shuttered like it does whenever Charles asks about his history.

* * *

Outside the dreams, life is impossibly normal. Exams, studying, microwave dinners, the next door neighbors having screaming matches, the ones below having room-shaking sex at 3:06 a.m. on Wednesday. He's healed, and there are no signs he ever fell from Sather Hall, except for the news accounts.

Walking to class, Charles passes through the downtown storefronts. Amongst all the mannequins draped in plaid, scarves, and fringe purses, there's a red and purple checkered shirt. He stops and stares at it for a few minutes, not quite knowing why.

There's a niggling at the back of his mind; he's learning it has something to do with his ability. It tells him Erik would like it. He checks his watch. Fifteen minutes to class. Enough time to run in and check the price tag on the shirt.

He goes to class (Physics III) and on his way home, he buys the shirt for $16.99 with a 20% off coupon, courtesy of the winking clerk. The same stretching sense tells him what size to buy too. Again, he tries not to think of why he's buying a shirt for a man he's never met, who for all he knows is living in London.

* * *

 "I feel like I've known you for a long time," Charles confides one day over a checkered blanket.

Erik, in typical fashion, grunts. "You don't even _remember_." He moves his bishop and takes Charles' knight.

Charles is confused, but Erik stays silent. "You called for me you know," Erik says at length. He takes Charles’ rook using his power on the magnetized bottom.

Erik constantly manipulates metal, trying for flashier, bigger tricks. He brings metal with him and bends it, reshapes it, makes spoons and dimes into small birds and even a knife. Charles asked him if the blade was functional, and Erik responded by slicing his finger. The response wasn't surprising. Erik always exudes a base level of anger beneath whatever he feels. It spikes when he uses metal, but it also calms him; Charles doesn't know what to think about that.

He turns his attention back to Erik.

"No," Charles says slowly, trying the thought out like pulling caramel apart in his mouth. "Did I?"

Erik shakes his head and says nothing more.

* * *

Frequently, their landscapes abruptly end in a cliff dropping into the ocean. Erik stands at the edge contemplating whatever it is he does, and Charles wonders how his desire for a pond turned into an ocean. When Charles finally asks Erik what he's doing, he says he's trying to fly. He's clearly expecting Charles to remember the conversation they had weeks ago.

"Why do you want to fly? I thought you weren't a superhero kind of man."

"I'm a hunting kind of man. I need every weapon possible."

Charles looks back and forth between Erik and the white capped water. "I think I can help you."

Erik raises his eyebrow and backs away from the edge and towards Charles.

"We know I'm like you. Well, not _quite_. I can poke about people's minds and -- "

"You're a telepath," Erik handily supplies.

"Oh, right. Well, yes, and I think - "

"Go ahead and try." Charles thinks Erik acquiesces out of equal parts amusement at him and desire for whomever he's pursuing.

"You'll tell me if I pry too much?"

Erik thinks the answer is so obvious he doesn't deign to reply. _Smug satisfaction (of course)._ Charles doesn't need his telepathy to read that though; it's apparent in Erik's smirk, his wide stance, and the way he cockily leans back with his hands in his back pockets.

At first, Charles wills him to fly. When all he gets is Erik's laughter at his constipated expression, he moves onto visualization exercises. All those do is succeed in making Erik sleepy or thirsty enough to drink salt water.

They continue trying different things across the coming nights. Erik practices on his own, Charles tries to help.

One day, Erik says, "You do realize, that this is practice for you as much as me."

Charles hasn't gotten rid of the idea of Erik as a BBC period hero, and apparently his mind is working that out. The ocean waves crash loudly against what seems to be the White Cliffs of Dover. Erik, obligingly enough, is in a tan trench coat that flaps nicely in the wind. Charles feels out of place with his thrift store pullover.

"Huh? Oh, yes, I suppose." Charles tries to pull his fingerless gloves over more of his fingers.

"You need more. You could do a lot more than this mood ring parlor trick. I'll help."

"How would you know?"

"You're not the only telepath I know." That's not with Charles meant.   "I'm going to think of a sentence." Not the usual pictogram game they play.

Charles looks at him skeptically. "I'm not a magician," he says a bit resentfully.

"Just try. I do the same for you."

Things come to Charles in pieces. _Warmth, dislike._ He could really do with chocolate raisins... an echo from Erik about how much he loathes any sweet related to chocolate.

"I'm not getting any thoughts. Can we change the weather to something less chilly?" Charles complains.

"Try harder. The cold's good for you, builds you up."

Things solidify, flashes of things Erik associates with heat ( _summer, water, mosquito bug bites, scent of sun block_ ), all overlaid with distaste. Charles lets those sweep past him, that's not what he's looking for. At last Erik's voice settles over his shoulders.

**_I hate summer._ **

"Why ever would you hate summer? It's a lovely season -- "

 _Rumble of the car, hum of its metal. Window rolled down, his head sticking out in the wind. Metal screaming, heat HOT_ burning _him screaming --_

Erik cuts himself off, and Charles realizes he wasn't meant to see that. Charles thinks of the nightmares Erik carries with him.

Charles reaches out to him, "My friend -- "

Erik shrugs him and his coat off and dives off the cliff. Charles watches him go under like a sleek fish. He sits on the edge, and waits for Erik to come back to shore.

* * *

Welcome back to KREL, your local news source. I'm Merribel Fairweather and this is Danny Moon. Today marked the fifth unexplained explosion the city has experienced this month. People are beginning to worry that this may coincide with the Time Bomber's anniversary. Mike Wang is out on the streets tonight; Mike, what are people saying?

* * *

They settle into a pattern. Charles is eager and exuberant to help Erik, to use his own strange power to help another and understand more of himself. Erik indulges him ( _amusement_ ). One of them gets tired eventually; Erik gets irate, Charles gets distracted and wants a nap. In the end they wind up talking, communicating in pulses of feelings and brief flashes, or changing the dream. Charles wishes for one of those lulls, but Erik is intent on pushing him.

"Try again." Erik places his finger on Charles' forehead and pushes. Charles ducks his head, annoyed.

It's hard. They've been working on expanding Charles' bag of tricks. Charles picked up on how to read thoughts directed _at_ him, so now Erik wants Charles to do it when he keeps the unprotected thought to himself. So Charles has to figure out how to get _to_ Erik. Charles closes his eyes, and stretches that sense he learns is always there towards Erik.

"Open up Charles." He leaves it unsaid that he thinks the problem is with Charles.

Charles would rather run laps on the track they're on today, or run up and down the bleachers, despite wearing flip-flops, but he knows Erik will glare at him for trying to shirk practicing. "I'm trying to concentrate."

"No you're not. You put your fingers to your temple when you're really trying."

Charles sighs, opens his eyes, and obliges. Erik continues, "Think open. Doors, windows, chests, drawers, whatever. Think about childbirth if you need to." Charles sputters. "Do whatever you need to control your mutation." Erik adds, "Don't think about me opening, or anything violent toward me."

He tries his best. He thinks of a castle protecting a king opening the portcullis. The word comes to him, pulled in quickly like a vacuum.

 _Shaw_. He forms his mouth around the word. There's a rush of emotion, even stronger than usual, perhaps it's the word, perhaps it's this practice, but it tastes old and deep-seated, well-nourished by anger and pain.

"You're looking for him."

Charles steps forward, Erik clearly surprised. Then Erik turns on the balls of his feet and starts jogging, kicking up clouds of gravel behind him.

**_Coming?_ **

It's a distraction, but Charles is okay with that. He sets off after Erik, cutting across the grass.

**_That's cheating!_ **

Charles is going to need all the help he can get if he's to beat Erik in his sneakers and sweatpants. He laughs, as he races through the grass' sprinkler system.

* * *

When Charles feels comfortable enough with his mutation in the dreams, he tries outside of them. He holds entire conversations with Erik now. Although Charles thinks Erik's learned a good bit more than him, since he's getting better control of his metal _and_ learning the ins-and-outs of communicating (or not) with a telepath.

To while away the seventeen minutes he has until the bus arrives for his grocery run, he tries to figure out what the pedestrians are doing. There're businessmen, women with strollers, a man asking for change on the corner. What are their stories?

It backfires. Terribly. _Cacophony_. All the thoughts rush into him, and Charles spreads through all their minds and exists in all of them at once, feeling seeing thinking like them and he can't figure out which thoughts are his. The cloying panic he feels must be his though.

And then a familiar presence reaches him, stretching around him, gently separating him from the minds and the noise. A shield so that while Charles can still read thoughts, it isn't an overflow.

_Lateforwork. Parapluieumbrellaparlez-vous? Leftleftrightorisitthreerightsandaleft?_

He pulls back to his own mind, and Erik's presence leaves him feeling ready to sink into the ground, sleepy and warm, and above all safe.

* * *

"Let's take a break shall we?" Charles is already reaching for Erik, grabbing his hands -- they've learned having the physical mimic the psychic connection helps -- to think of a picnic, but Erik closes himself off.

Charles pouts. "Why are you so determined to keep practicing?" **_Aren't you sick of seaside cliffs yet?_**

"I told you, I'm searching for a man. We have unfinished business." Charles sighs, put out by being ignored. "You're not tired are you?"

He's very aware that what Erik is deliberately baiting him, but Charles rises to it anyway. "No."

"Let's continue then." Erik smiles wolfishly, and Charles feels less tired in the face of his enthusiasm.

Half an hour in, Erik's excitement wanes. Huffing out sea air is his only concession to the frustration he feels. They're at the point where Erik steps off the cliff in hopes of flying, but when he fails, they have to change the dream so he'll land safely. Charles leaves Erik to his own devices mostly and rides side-long in his mind, trying to figure out what Erik does or doesn't do.

It's Charles, frightened of seeing Erik's body against the rocks red with his blood, who comes up with the idea of always placing a large floating mattress beneath the cliff. Erik looks entirely unimpressed, but then works to lower the cliff so the mattress will take his weight. The benefits of working in dreams and not reality.

Erik bounces on the mattress, spread-eagled, watching Charles impassively who's still peering over the cliff. Charles kneels down, his knees growing damp, and shouts down, hand cupped by his mouth. "You're so close, my friend, but the only thing holding you back is yourself."

Erik glares from his gently rocking bed. Charles waggles his fingers. "I don't know how else to describe it, but you're weighing yourself down with unnecessary things. Thoughts. Preoccupations. You don't have those when you move pens around."

 ** _I do more than just pen tricks_** , he growls.

"I know."

* * *

Erik isn't the only one with memories he doesn't want to share. When Charles finds his way into memories of a woman ( _lovelovelove_ ) who must be Erik's mother ( _face close, hair greying at the temples, pulled back, everything'sgoodErik_ ), Erik shoves back, and they fall into a memory of Charles'.

He's six and watching his mother sit imperiously at the head of the table waiting for the help to finish the stew and serve it to her. Charles sits to her right, feet dangling from the chair. He taps his fork against his knife, and his mother slaps his hands down, asking for silence with a look.

Charles stops his tinkering and kicks his legs even harder under the table.

Charles remembers this is when he found out his father had died. He doesn't want to share the grief of that moment or what came after, not with himself, and not with anyone else, not even Erik. He scrambles to find a way to kick them out of this memory.

He thinks of when he lost his virginity with Lena Marie on her La-Z-Boy recliner, of Arnie Steinbech's lips against his and how large his eyes were when Charles went down on him.

He thinks of his mind as a large boot kicking Erik out with the door slamming behind him.

It works, and Charles is heaving, somehow falling to sit on the grass, and Erik is clutching his head.

"Fuck."

Charles feels weak and crawls over to go rub the base of Erik's neck.

"Is that how it always feels?" Charles rasps.

"Sometimes," Erik mumbles. He shrugs his shoulders so Charles' thumbs dig in near his vertebrae. Charles keeps at it, maneuvering to Erik's back for a better reach.

"Your hair was blond."

"Why...? Yes."

Erik looks across the field and into the woods. He's probably wondering what's in them, and will ask Charles to go in. "Your hair's black."

"Oh. When I was younger my hair was blond. It darkened as I got older, but I missed the blond; I thought I looked more dashing that way. More fun." He smiles sheepishly, and keeps kneading all the tenseness in Erik. "Besides, I'm actually a brunet."

Erik shrugs again, and Charles' hands move out to his shoulders. "It doesn't matter either way."

Erik draws away from Charles' hands. He inclines his head to the woods. "Shall we?"

Charles groans, but follows.

The birds quite literally sing, and Erik's scowl shifts things back to their usual tenor. Charles admits the birds are from _Snow White_ , and later Erik admits the gingerbread house is from his childhood of Grimm fairy tales.

When they find somewhere to stop that's suitably absent of Disney creatures and Grimm menaces, Erik announces, "I'm going to hide a memory from you. I want you to find it."

"I'm game." Charles grins. His fatigue ebbs as he recognizes this clearing, knowing a hound is going to appear soon and chase Erik. He hopes Erik is surprised that Charles brings animals other than the singing kind with him; he does have some bite to him after all. He reaches out to Erik's mind.

* * *

**_Charles! Charles!_ **

"Charles!"

Charles blearily opens his eyes to Erik leaning over him and his hands on Charles' shoulders. "Yes, Erik?" But it comes out garbled, his mouth felt full of cotton.   He tries a few more times before getting out, "What happened?"

Erik sits back onto his knees and into the ferns. "You found the memory but then you blacked out."

"Why?"

Erik frowns. "It was how we first met. I thought you were done with blocking yourself after you realized you were a mutant. I think you don't want to remember. Come on, we need to get something into you." Erik stands and offers his hand to help Charles up.

Charles protests and quite vocally questions what good is eating imaginary food.

"When you burn through your mutation like that, you're often hungry. And things here carry over to when we're awake; my control is better there too. This might help. You don't want to eat all the frozen pizza you have left do you?"

Charles figures the detail about frozen pizza must be one Erik's picked up from him. They're constantly leaking information to one another, whether they know it or not, the information remembered when needed. Charles complains about not being able to eat the gingerbread house when Erik starts explaining its lack of nutritional value. He still takes Erik's hand to shift the dream to conjure food though.

He delights in Erik's shock when he changes the wicker basket into one made of gingerbread and eats the lid to get to the food.

* * *

the only good fish is a dead fish ([](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[ **shriekingshack**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)) wrote in **[](http://news.livejournal.com/profile)[partofthecity](https://xmrb-support.livejournal.com)**

Untitled  


The news outlets are full of news about the bomber. what have u guys heard? Has anyone else heard on the police scanners there are a ton of warehouse & "fires" that look like xplosions?

( 6 Comments )

[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works) **[harderthansteel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl)** Mod Note  
Add a title and tags to your post.

 ****[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[iloveplasmatvs](https://aeshna-uk.livejournal.com)  
The conspiracy theories are getting old man.

[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works) **[dontchawishurgf](https://purplebloom500.livejournal.com)  
** wait, is he 1 of us????

> **[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[harderthansteel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl)  
>  ** What the fuck is this, I go out of town and all the idiots come by? I'd tell you to fuck off and educate yourself, but I am in a charitable mood. Here is a link. Now go fuck off and educate yourself.

****[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[jekyll](https://celadonite.livejournal.com)  
  
Not going to believe it until [](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[maxvonnegut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/pseuds/spicedpiano) shows up with his hard-on for him.

> **[](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works)[iloveplasmatvs](https://aeshna-uk.livejournal.com)  
>  ** Not max, but one of my foster dads is on the force. Its true he's back.

* * *

 

"You need to let go." Charles digs his bare feet into the hot sand. If he gets a bit burnt, it doesn't matter, since the tide is coming in and with it, all the freezing water.

"What?" Erik is still in a long-sleeve and closed toe shoes. He looks entirely comfortable despite the socks full of sand he must have. His side of the beach drops into a cliff, the geographical impossibility posing no barrier in their dreams as sand slowly trickles to the water.

"You're using your hate of Shaw to power yourself. Hate can only take you so far. It's like the adage: Love conquers all. Find something that isn't negative to power yourself. Besides," Charles adds, fingering his temple, "the outpour of anger gives me migraines."

Charles is always open to Erik, and Erik lets thoughts seep to Charles. It takes far too much energy and attention to block the constant undercurrent between them. There are things they say to each other without speech. It's easier this way, sometimes.

**_I don't know how_.**

Charles is beginning to notice the hardest things for Erik to say are things he doesn't say at all and lets Charles hear instead.

Charles replies in like. **_DO YOU WANT ME TO HELP?_**

"Too loud."

Charles tries again, dipping his left foot ankle deep into the sea. **_Do you want me to help?_**

"Better. And -- yes."

Charles does his best. He cycles through a range of emotions; he quickly goes through the negative ones -- embarrassment, fear, despair, all the ones he cares to forget -- and happily moves onto the positive ones.

He's not sure how much Erik picks up, whether it's just the feelings, or the flashes of memory and associations.   When Charles remembers the serenity of watching the ocean tides --

**_Blue, white edges, sea foam, sand everywhere, in and out, exhaleinhale, air clean/er sharp in his lungs_.**

\-- they're successful.

Erik steps off the ledge and his feet hover for a moment before he tumbles down onto the waiting mattress, floating in the sea.

"Well," Charles remarks, "This is going to be difficult."

 ** _No shit_**. Erik climbs the stairs they added to try again.

* * *

"Haven't we practiced enough for the night Charles?" Even Erik, with his desire for vengeance -- Erik's never said it, but Charles can feel it -- has to call it quits sometime, and Charles is glad to see he's capable of it. It's a blow to his ego that he always tires first.

"If you insist," he says dramatically. He can't maintain the front for long, there's no hiding his excitement as he asks, "Shall we change the scenery? "

Erik nods. The result is a pool in the middle of a field. Charles recognizes his part; the decorative pool is from when he still lived in Westchester, but the surrounding field is lined with redwoods he doesn't recognize.

"I've always wanted to do this," Charles confides impishly. He slips his shoes off, rolls his pants up to his knees, and steps into the water, seeing how deep it is. When his feet don't reach the bottom, he carefully sits himself down on the concrete ledge and lets his legs sink into the water.

"Can't do this in public parks," he says mostly to himself in satisfaction.

 Erik hmms a reply, and Charles hears him settle down beside him.

"You're going to lie down? Why don't you come in?"

"No, I'll just take in the sun."

"So you do admit, summer's not all bad."

Erik says nothing in reply. Probably trying to retain his dignity, but Charles feels his contentedness, and with the sun against him, the feeling is infectious.

Charles looks back at Erik with his hands clasped over his chest. He wants to make a jab at how peaceful he looks, but instead watches Erik's eyes slowly close. He wants to brush the curl of hair against Erik's forehead back into its part. Hesitantly, he does so, letting his hand linger. Erik sleepily opens his eyes, and Charles waits.

"Okay?"

Erik looks up at him for a moment, and shuts his eyes in reply. **_Go ahead_** , he murmurs _._

Charles smiles, slides the rest of Erik's hair back, and then looks up, closes his eyes, and enjoys the heat of the blue summer sky.

* * *

Things shift between them. Charles is less afraid to explore his power, Erik is a little more open. Charles catches the undercurrent of foreign words, but isn't skilled enough to pluck the translations from Erik's mind. He thinks Erik would be embarrassed if he asked.

Small touches become common, and Charles doesn't mind at all, and neither does Erik judging by what Charles can read of his thoughts and the way he reciprocates. Erik wears a T-shirt, and when Charles sees the scars, he doesn't ask what happened, but he touches them and Erik lets him.

They can tell when waking is near and that's when there's a small touch, as if reassuring there is a connection, even when they have no tangible proof the other exists. Charles is not _un_ changed either.

He has two dreams that he isn't sure is about Erik or with him.

The first:

Charles can feel Erik's mind is elsewhere. "Where are you going?" he whispers. His hands are light on Erik's cheeks, and Erik looks so peaceful and easy. He brushes his thumbs across his cheekbones.

Erik's eyes are wide and full of sky. "Far from here," he whispers to himself.

The second:

Erik must think Charles is asleep because this easy touch wouldn't come otherwise. Eventually Charles feels he should be honest and opens his eyes. He looks up at Erik.

"Hey," he says.

Erik smiles gently. "Go back to sleep." So Charles does in Erik's lap, the sensation of fingers carding through his hair his last memory.

* * *

Sometimes he still dreams like he used to, where he can't remember when he wakes and nothing makes sense at all. It's usually before and after the dreams with Erik. Sometimes he dreams of the usual nonsense: cotton candy clouds, rocks for teeth, late for his exams, the horror at being discovered a mutant.

Once, he sees a woman in red looking him in the eyes even though she's blind. Her voice is disjointed from the movement of her mouth.

"I'm sorry. But I had to do it. I had to."

By the time he hears her last words fading into the blur of dreams, her mouth has stepped moving entirely. "I saw it, and I saw it must happen. So I did." The words echo, sounding like a prayer.

Like the absolution and vindication she longs for.

* * *

**Explosions work of Bomber**  
by Ryan Creevy  
RCreevy@SilverTrumpet.com

Police this morning held a press conference announcing the Time Bomber's return to the city. The unexplained explosions of the past month all bear his signature atom signature scorched into the remaining doorframe. Police sources would not reveal how far back these explosions could be traced ... The Bomber's last known crime was at the Kesslar Honda fifteen years ago, killing Edie Eisenhardt in her car. Her surviving son, who was in the passenger seat and one of the Bomber's few survivors, could not be reached for comment...

* * *

He is at the entrance to Sather Hall, just like on that May morning. The weather is the same, his fingers tingling from the cold, but his feet warm because Sean insisted he use the wool socks if he came this early. He opens the door -- he still distantly wonders if his hands will stick to the metal from the cold -- and climbs the stairs. Sometimes he and Erik don't appear in the same part of the dream and have to find each other. Charles wonders what Erik's addition to all of this must be, because all of this is from Charles' memory.

Charles looks in the fifth floor lab first, but when he gets there, the door opens to the roof.

The wind turns his ears red, and his eyes water. There's a lamppost to his right, and instead of discarded beer cans and cigarette butts strewn everywhere, sidewalks wind back and forth. He steps close to the edge, looking over the city.

"Not going to jump are you?"

The voice is familiar and well-worn now, like a worry-stone smoothed in his pocket. He turns to face Erik.

"No, I'm not."

Charles knows that's not what happened, despite all his intentions. He can't remember it all, but he knows he wasn't going to jump; somehow between peering over the edge at all the small shapes of the city and all the life there, he fell.

Erik nods his head, and Charles thinks that's how he says _good_.

The wind blows Erik's cape, and between the snap of it, the flashes of red and crimson, and the cold shine of his helmet, he cuts the handsome figure. Charles wishes he was an artist and not a scientist for a moment; he'd like to preserve this moment for all to see.

Erik's shoes tap against the floor, and then his hands have slipped into Charles'.   He quirks an eyebrow wondering what they're going to change -- can he convince Erik to add a carousel? Will Erik insist on a museum exhibit? -- and Erik's gaze says this is not a game.

Charles brushes his mind against Erik ( _questioning, curiosity_ ), but Erik takes Charles' hand and places one on his shoulder and starts swaying in time with the pulse between them. Charles doesn't resist, and lets his other hand come to rest on Erik's waist.

"I thought you didn't like superheroes." Charles tries to joke, but it comes out low.

"I don't." Erik's voice is also soft.

If taking Erik's offered hand is easy, moving together is even easier. Neither leads nor follows.   They move in time, and Charles wants to stay like this.

"I'm going after him."

There's only one _him_. Charles turns his head towards Erik's ear. "He's here?"

"Yes."

"You're sure." They move in slow circles and arcs, moving closer to the ledge.

"I am."

Charles wants to pull away, to take a moment, and find his breath. He tightens his fingers instead and keeps rocking above the city turned red by the sunset.

Held close together, it's easy to hear Erik's words. "I would stay with you." _Wishif I could._

Above the burning city they dance.

* * *

"I'm going," Erik says in the dream. It echoes, even when Charles wakes.

* * *

We interrupt your normal broadcasting for this breaking news. Police forces have surrounded a building the Time Bomber is suspected to be in, along with a second, unknown man.


	3. Chapter 3

Charles does not dream of Erik after that.

Perhaps Charles shouldn't have let Erik learn to block him. For all that Charles has learned of his telepathy, Erik has -- through his own trial and error of unwanted memories -- learned to obstruct, deceive, and obfuscate Charles' telepathy. To open the flow of communication requires both of them, and Erik is steadfastly refusing

Charles tries not to think about how isolated he is. Realizing how much Erik's mind was a constant, pleasant press against his, even when awake, his mind feels empty now.

More disconcerting, he realizes how erratic his telepathy is now without him there, how much he relies on Erik to steady him even in his waking hours. Erik's absence is felt as keenly as a missing limb. Charles takes enough ibuprofen to begin wondering if it's a health hazard -- he ought to know, but he can't think past the headaches that the single minded focus of blocking stray thoughts and feelings brings.

He sends out a carefully crafted thought.

**_I miss you. Come back?_ **

He receives no reply.

* * *

Yahoo!News  
Intern on Montresorr mystery  
Police raid reveals something strange.  
What turned a Montresorr sculpture into this?

...While the Time Bomber and his accomplice escaped police forces this afternoon, police have no answers on how the iron Montresorr was re-molded into a shield-like shape. An intern of Montresorr said the sculpture, commissioned by the Tamden Foundation, would require high temperatures to be altered. Although the explosion from the bomb could be at fault, the intern had no idea how it could form this specific shape. "It's unnatural," she said.

* * *

Charles sees the headline and knows. Or, he doesn't know, and he knows he might be crazy, but --

He knows he has the card; he kept it beyond all reason. He opens his drawers, shuffles through them, throwing papers to the floor, shaking out notepads, and finds the card where he first thought, under his telephone.

He listens to the tone as he punches each number.

The other side picks up. He grips the phone, anxious.

"Hello?"

"Hello, you've reached the Directory for the Fellowship of Men Role Playing Game. Leave your name, your message, and a way to reply to you, after the tone."

The voice sounds familiar, but Charles is too worried. "Errr, hello? My names is Charles and Angel told me to tell you that spitfire is my handler?"

The other line picks up. "Mr. Xavier, we've been expecting you. Angel will meet you at the Trafalgar Shoppe courtyard in two days at 7:30am. In the mean time we'll send you some reading material; expect it in your mail box tomorrow morning."

The man on the other end hangs up, and Charles stares at his phone still giving him the dial tone.

* * *

There is no ethics committee for what we do as mutants, and as a result, we held ourselves to the highest ethical standard possible (Wilson 18) ... Pyromancer looking for swm ... Selling Xbox360 for $70 ... Looking for participants in study of elemental-affinities ... Dear Annie, my friend "Nester" is a giller and I hate having to provide a tank of water for him every time he comes over ... Lately, I keep watching movies and wondering how we can apply them to our situation; you see, things weren't like this back in my day ...

* * *

He finds Angel already sitting outside with a coffee cup in hand, lipstick staining the rim.

He waves his rolled-up copy of _Youth in the City: a role playing publication_. It crinkles loudly. "You're part of a _role playing group_?"

She levels him another look that says how little she thinks of him.

"Sit down," she replies firmly.

He does, and she continues watching him. "You know this isn't the place for public demonstration, and you know this is not a role playing group that meets every Friday to roll some dice or create some fantasy characters. I don't have the time to indulge in that sort of make believe. If you do, I don't think we should be having this conversation until you are."

He hastily backpedals. "No, no, that's not what I meant at all." She raises one arched eyebrow; clearly interested in how he's going to get himself out of this. "I mean, I just wasn't expecting _that_."

"What did you expect Charles? Hello, we're a group of mutants, please tell us all about it after the beep?" She grimaces. "People brush us off once they think we're just a bunch of geeks RPing."

He smoothes out the small issue he received in his mail just as promised.

"You have a magazine for this sort of stuff?"

"Yeah," she says like he's just said a stupid thing. _Have to be there when he finds the internet stuff. Amusement._

"How do you even send this without raising eyebrows?"

She rolls her eyes. "We're an RP group. We're geeks. We're bound to do weird things." She gives a genuine smile then. "We get applications now and then, and we have to turn them down. I get to send out those letters." Her great glee at doing the task is apparent.

"So," she says. "You called me for a reason, so tell." She folds her hands, leans back in her wire backed chair with a push of her heeled boots, and waits.

Charles wonders what he's supposed to say.

"I have a friend, he's like us, and I think he needs help."

"Think?"

Charles isn't sure how to explain it. "Are you sure it's ok to talk about this here?" **_In public?_** Both of her eyebrows go up; she probably heard him.

"RP group remember? No one takes us seriously ever. Geekdom does that to people."

He does his best to describe the dreams, Erik's disappearance from them, and the subsequent news story.

Angel is surprisingly pensive the whole way through, and he can feel her genuine interest and concern. At the end, she takes a sip of her coffee -- he's pretty sure the cup is empty now, so it must be a tic of hers -- and says, "You said his name was Erik?"

"Yes."

She leans her left arm on the table, and taps a tangerine colored fingernail against the table. "I'm pretty sure you're talking about Erik Lehnsherr. His talent's with metal, so I don't know how he's been talking with you. Your telepathy, probably." She stares straight through him. "It's strong, if you can do this. Or it's just sympathy." She shrugs, adjusting her macramé beret.

He blinks.

"You're cute when you're confused," she continues. _You read like an open book_. "Some people are just inclined towards each other. Sympathetic. Like someone who's a pyro and someone who's fireproof.

"So what you want is help, but you don't know what kind of help?"

"Well, when you phrase it that way... Yes."

She nods. "If it's okay with you, I'll send your query out to Hank, and then he'll send out a general one to the network. If anyone pings, they'll know to contact you. You'll be the one coordinating the info."

"Wait, you have my info?"

"Of course we do. We don't extend invitations without doing our research." Seeing his shock, she adds, "Don't worry, not everyone can see it. When people respond to the ad, they respond to Hank, and then he passes the info on. The ad will be local, and if that doesn't turn up anything, it'll go regional."

He swallows. "Wouldn't it be quicker for me to just tell Hank directly?"

"It'll be quicker for me to do it; you haven't met him yet. You're new, so you can only reach out to people you've met in-person, while you're both out, for now." _We don't know how trustworthy you are yet, and Hank's busy now._ He gets a flash of glasses and a lab and a stack of lab books.

"Wait, are we talking about Hank the TA?" he replies incredulously. He wonders if all geniuses are merely a result of mutation, starts thinking about how he could conduct a study of that, and tries to figure out how it can apply this to his Medical Ethics' term paper.

Angel tenses; he hit the mark. She points her finger at him. "First of all, it's rude to use your mutation like that. Secondly, if you're going to be rude and do it anyway, don't flaunt it. It'll make people who haven't been around minders nervous. There are still people who are uncomfortable with it and some who have secrets they want to keep.

"Third, you'll find out for yourself. You're in the network now, so people may start approaching you. Speaking of, we need a handle for you. We don't use our real names in the magazine or the mailing list or the like." **_The internet, social networks, forums, blogs_** _._ She pushes that thought towards him and waits expectantly.

"How about labrat?"

She snorts. "All right."

Slinging her purse across her shoulder, she stands. "Listen." Her voice changes to something more gentle. "I'm the one who found you, so I'm responsible for you. You need any help, just let me know." She extends her hand. "Give me your phone. Anytime you need help, give me a call. You do something stupid with your mutation in public and you need a fix up? Call." She looks uncomfortable and adds, "But don't call me about how difficult your classes are or anything like that. That's not what I'm here for."

She hands his phone back and walks away, her heels making hardly any noise against the asphalt.

* * *

From: Radically Mutant  
Subj: RE: News Digest, Classifieds, Labrat seeking allies of maxvonnegut for aid  
To: Admin  
Cc: Maxx Vonnegut

Hey Jekyll,

we should meet up again, let me see how you're latest experiments are going. I'll bring the chocolate if you bring the twinkies and let me melt the chocolate over the bunsenburners ;) In the meantime, give me the info for labrat.

-rm

 

From: Admin  
Subj: RE:RE: News Digest, Classified, Labrat seeking allies of maxvonnegut for aid  
To: Radically Mutant

Please stop using emailing this account for personal stuff! This is my admin account; email my jekyll account for that kind of stuff. And yes, I'll have the Twinkies.

* * *

At 3:00am someone pounds on Charles' door. He sends a clumsy probe past the door, trying to see if it's a classmate or someone drunk at the wrong door.

 _Openopenopen_ Erik.

Charles sets his pen down, rubs his eyes, and opens the door.

He smells her perfume first. The woman's his age, blonde, blue-eyed, and too well-dressed by half for this obscene hour with her trench coat and boots. Charles' more sensibly dressed in flannel pants, Dearfoam slippers, and a T-shirt.

She taps her umbrella imperiously on his doorstep. "You're Charles Xavier right? I hear you're looking for Erik."

Charles draws himself up, and takes his hand off the doorframe.

"Yes, yes I am. Won't you come in?"

He offers her coffee, but she asks for hot cocoa instead.

"I only have the cheap mix stuff," he informs her.

She shrugs. "I'm not here for your hospitality anyway."

The woman's name is Raven -- she doesn't give her last name -- and she's been looking for Erik too.

He asks her how she found him.

"You sent out a query on the network. _Someone'_ s going to reply." Her hand snakes out and grasps his wrist. The skin exposed by her jacket sleeve ripples and turns into blue ridges. "You're one of us, and while I'd like to be polite about what your mutation is, I need to know if you're going to be of any help at all."

"I'm... Erik, that is, he said I'm a telepath."

She releases his wrist. **_How much can you do?_**

"I can read minds."

She assesses him. "You're more than that -- you've been reading more than my thoughts from the moment I knocked on your door. You need someone to help you with that; it can be risky testing the limits of your powers. Especially when you have one like yours where it affects others."

He clears his throat, uncomfortable. "How'd you get my address?"

"You're in the network now. It's easy. But that's not important. What do you know about Erik's disappearance? No one in the network can find him, not even Emma."

Something -- his mutation -- tells him Emma is special. He pokes at Raven's head to see what she means by special.

This time, she squeezes his wrist hard enough to bruise. " _Don't_."

"Sorry. Who's Emma?" He rubs his temple with his wrist, hoping the two hurts will cancel each other out; the backlash from his probe is now a pressure behind his right ear.

She looks at him with yellow eyes. "You're a late bloomer aren't you?"

"I am new to this, yes."

A pause. "You should meet her; she's like you."

"What do you mean? Oh. _Oh._ "

She nods. "You could learn a lot from her. But there's no time now. Tell me what you know. Who are you -- beyond the Facebook usual; don't look at me that way, I had to do it, sorry," she says entirely unapologetic, "and how you know Erik, because he's never mentioned you before."

They leave exchanging email and cell numbers, promising to exchange any info they find. They check in over the next few weeks, grab coffee, snag lunch. Charles discovers Raven doesn't believe in personal space, and she thinks Charles is a stuffy old man before his age. 

There's an uneasy friendship forming. Quick attachments are something Charles is getting used to; maybe it's his ebullient personality, or maybe it's the telepathy.

* * *

 ** _Charles!_** Erik says, and this is not a dream. He slams into Charles with desperation and fright, and Charles looks around at the rest of his class taking their exams. He knows no one in the room could've said it; the proctor would've shushed them, but he looks anyway.

He finishes the exam quickly, adrenaline rushing and hands shaking from the rush of foreign, familiar emotions He doesn't bother checking his answers. He races out the door, hands trying to put away his pens and extract his phone at the same time.

"Raven? Raven, we're out of time, we need to find Erik _now_."

* * *

They meet at Charles' as usual. In the midst of exams, his place is a wreck of microwavable dishes, half-eaten food, and papers and highlighters strewn everywhere.

Raven keeps pushing her hair back, despite the gel in it. "Emma's out of town, so you'll have to scry for Erik yourself. No way I know where Erik's gone too; he's impulsive like that, he left without me, even though I told him I'd be there." She bites her lips, sinks in the sofa next to Charles and settles in close. She's leaking a lot of things: distaste, hints of betrayal, strength.

He slings his arm across her shoulder and rubs her shoulder, offering what comfort he can. "Scry?"

"Search."

"I know that, but it sounds like something out of a book with elves."

She gives him a flat look. "Pretending to be a RP group rubs off in the wrong ways sometimes."

"Wait, I thought you weren't supposed to give out the names of other mutants."

 ** _Bit late on the up-take aren't you?_** "You'll meet Emma, there's no way you won't." She pulls away from his side and plops into the chair across from him. "Quit stalling, let's do this."

Two pots of coffee, a box of cheese sticks, and one Hawaiian pizza later, they have nothing to show but Charles taking Advil and Raven changing her eye color every few minutes in agitation.

"I think you're your own worst enemy," Raven says. She folds her arms and kicks her feet onto Charles' research papers. "You're blocking your own range, I think. It's self-preservation probably, lots of new mutants do things like that. I couldn't find my own shape again for _years_.

"From what I know of Emma, you can probably read across wide distances. What you're doing now is just walking around hoping to sense him. You said you'd know his mental signature anywhere right?"

Charles nods, bites his lip. "Yes. But I tried using my telepathy before, nothing close to this, and I got lost among all the minds."

"You're afraid. That's understandable." She takes a bite out of her pizza and talks with her mouth full. "I guess the question is are you more afraid of yourself than you want to find Erik? Because I really do think you're right. He's in over his head. He thinks he can do everything on his own." She shakes her head, her hair growing into freshly pressed curls around her shoulders.

Raven's clever. She looks so innocuous there with her legs crossed and her scoop-necked blouse and turquoise fringed scarf, but she's hitting him all the hard balls.

They eat in silence. Raven stares at him relentlessly, and then gets up to paw through his fridge. **_No booze?_**

**_Ah, you see..._ **

_Embarrassment_. He must have leaked some of his high school days when he drank too much. "It's cool." She tosses him a water. **_Let's try this_** _._

She walks towards him, and right in front his eyes, she _changes_. Blonde curls turn red and slick, her clothes disappear entirely, leaving her blue and ridged and hairless. The only familiar thing are her yellow eyes, she's shifted those before.

Are those her nipp--

Turning red, Charles grabs the blanket hanging over the sofa and offers it, averting his eyes. He turns to her when she taps his hand away. He meticulously keeps his eyes on hers and not her body.

"I'm not ashamed. This is who I am." She leans forward, her breasts swinging. **_I'm not hiding._** "Are you?"

He inhales and shuts his eyes.

"I'm going to... cast a large net with my mind, and see if I can find Erik. If I get too lost, do something would you?"

"Like what?" She sits next to him again, turning so she can place her feet between his thighs. Charles feels horribly uncomfortable.

She chews her pizza crust and sets her coffee mug on the table, shuffling papers around. He carefully does not look below her stomach; he doesn't need to know what the finer details of her biology.

"I leave that to your discretion."

She raises the ridges of her eyebrows.

Charles closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He remembers how he did this with Erik; if he could do it with one person, he can do it with many.

It's a rush, just like it was last time, but Charles imagines _S-L-O-W_ and instead of the disorienting blur, he can feel the push of minds ebb, and he can keep himself. He does this over and over, shifting what threads he follows, until he begins to grow tired. The minds become harder to resist, natural curiosity making him want to unknot and tease and tangle and tie all the fine paths minds take. In fact, coffee, the ball game, and then visiting his girlfriend after seemed a good ide--

**_Focus. Charles telling Erik the same thing, brickstonemortalwallcastle._ **

Neither thought is his, but the latter he knows is Erik's, the feeling of that _push_ is distinct.

Charles renews his search, and it’s easier this time. Erik's touch grounds him in his body -- his room, Raven nearby worried and determined, his butt's starting to hurt from all this sitting -- and finding the right beacon of knotted thoughts is simple.

At the end of the skein, there's Erik's mind. Charles nudges Erik, but Erik won't let him in. Undeterred, Charles takes the nearest mind he can find and suddenly --

_A different gait, shoes not broken in. Stop sign, lamp post, cars SUV truck Subaru to the left, dog shit by the tree, warehouse._

It's a surprise, not just to occupy a mind but to be in a body, which is why it takes Raven punching his stomach to jar him out.

He's exhausted, but he'll be better, faster, quicker finding Erik next time.

* * *

Charles falls asleep in a stack of books while studying for his latest exam.

In the dream, everything is familiar. The way his hands go numb, the people he nods hello too, the lab report he's worried about completing.

This is the day he fell.

This is a normal dream -- or the old kind at least, before this day -- where he can't move his body. All he can do is go through the motions, watching with growing anxiety and fear. He doesn't remember anything after leaving the computer lab.

The lab has one other occupant who's watching the latest episode of _The Big Bang Theory_. The printer jams though, and although Charles fixes it, he knows it's not going to be ready to print again for a good fifteen minutes.

He exits the lab whistling, and climbs his way to the roof. He might make it in time for the end of the sunrise when the whole world turns from blue to orange. He takes in the frigid air, letting it burn his nose, and walks near the edge to watch the rare absence of cars and pedestrians on the streets. The city feels empty, new, ready for anything, this time of morning.

Someone climbs the steps and Charles doesn't turn around. Plenty of students come up here to drink and smoke as evidenced by the butts and crushed cans.

The steps come to a stop behind him. He smells perfume.

"I have to do this." There's a pause, and Charles begins to turn around. "I'm sorry."

And then there's a hand against his back and he has no time to look at her because there is _no ground beneath his feet_ and he's not looking down at the street anymore he's looking up at the sky, and the building is zipping right past him and oh God he's _falling_ and he's going to _die._

He can't breathe through the wind, and he doesn't want to die and there's so much to do like the lab and finish college and be a doctor and get married and go home and he's _not ready to die yet God damn it._

The world splinters bit by bit, starting behind his eyes and eventually breaking the whole world apart. The sky is falling on his head, his skull crushing under its weight, splintering.

Splinters like roots spreading, pathways, well-worn grooves to follow, and at the end of every road is a tangled mess of thoughts all unspooling and drawing his attention here and to there --

He chases these thoughts, and wants to stop because he is scared. But if he stops he knows he'll just keep falling and he doesn't know which is more frightening.

He gasps for air, he tries to grab onto something, but the world keeps sliding past him and then --

There's someone near the street corner whose thoughts tangle up with his and Charles can't stop following all the way; his thoughts unfurl in purple ribbon and red knots snarling everywhere tangling him up.

And suddenly he's found his way to the heart of this man. He anchors, surrounds himself, using this man's life and experiences and self as a shield to hold himself together. He knows everything about this man, it comes into him like a homecoming, but it's also intuitive, a sudden knowing at passing through this door. And he can feel the man in his own self, letting himself sink down and fly.

**_Help me!_ **

And Charles feels that attention focus on him and then he feels the man do something, like stretching a muscle -- Charles can't figure out what muscle, doesn't find the reciprocal in his body -- and even though Charles is here, his body isn't and he can feel himself falling into something that's not concrete.

He feels like a fish caught in a net, lines pressing into his flesh, burning, sliding across until he falls through and does hit the ground. It hits him, not at all like he thought, but it still hurts. There's something cold and wet under him, and he thinks it must be his blood.

* * *

Charles wakes up in his books, gasping for breath, and scrambling for footing so hard he falls out of his chair. He knocks his knees against the desk.

He knows why he forgot everything. There was a moment where he really thought he could lift away and fly -- he could feel himself breaking apart, and then everything expanded and he _knew_ and heard so much.

No one should know and hear so much, but even in the whirling madness of wind and gravity and fear, he'd found someone who shined warmly and that was the only thing that kept him from flying apart.

Or, perhaps, it's more accurate to say the sudden intimacy of entirely knowing another person is not something anyone should know. Even now, after remembering, he can't remember everything he experienced -- saw, felt, tasted, none of that even begins to describe what it was like to be in that solid place of wind and knots -- but he remembers the way it left him feeling.

Charles picks up his books and reorganizes his desk, starting to plan.

In retrospect, Charles knows it wasn't blood he was in. He didn't have any injuries like that; it was the plants he fell on top of, still wet from the morning and the sprinkler system. He remembers the canopy was metal -- the agg department gerryrigged it from old lab supplies -- for the ivy or some other plant because they couldn't get the money for a real canopy.

_Metal.  
_

Charles knows the feel of that mind now.

* * *

That night, Charles leaves himself open, knowing Erik will come.

Instead of Sather's roof, they're on the streets below it, crumbling and still red under the light. Erik is already there, leaning his back against a food cart, whittling something for a change.

Charles wants to yell, _Why won't you let me find you?_ But Erik will drop himself out of the dream if he does that.

Instead, Charles clenches his fists, feels his face go red with frustration, and lets it go, saying, "I remember now."

"Remember what?"

"How we met. You saved me; you did something with the mesh canopy. That's why I didn't die."

Erik pockets his army knife and pulls away from the cart to rise to his height. "Yes. You called to me, and I helped you."

"Is that why we keep meeting like this?"

"You'd know more than I; I'm not the telepath. Metal is what I understand, not the human mind." One of Erik's hands is clenching his carving.

Charles tries to express the way they are, but words fail him. "I know you, and I think you know me too." He clumsily reaches out with his mind and touches Erik; he reaches out too hard, because Erik winces.

 ** _I know what you mean_** _,_ Erik sends. What he says is, "Did you know, that when we first manifest our powers, it can be a disaster. It's hard to cover up, but we manage. Sometimes it's nothing, like hovering over a bed when you wake up. Sometimes it's not; you cause a lightning storm in the middle of your softball game. That might be what happened for you.

"What this is... It's your power. I don't know the mechanics of it. Like I said."

"Are we sympathetic?" Charles shoots back.

Erik looks at him in genuine surprise. "Where did you hear that?"

"You're not the only mutant I know; she mentioned that some people," he stumbles a bit, surprised at Erik's open mouth and eyes wide with something like mingled surprise and fear. "Just click?"

"Charles, this is beyond sympathy." And Charles feels there's more to sympathy, at least to Erik, than what Angel had told him. "What did you think Charles, that people just know each other the way we do? It's not normal."

"It is for us."

Erik is thunderstruck, the few words he had swept aside, leaving him vulnerable. Even Charles is a bit surprised at himself.

 ** _Acceptance. Okokokit'sallright_** _._ It's a little self-convincing, and entirely sincere, but Charles isn't sure who Erik's directing it at.

Charles asks as gently as he can, "Why didn't you tell me how we met?" **_How deep this connection runs?_**

Erik steps towards him, still clothed in red like last time. "Charles. You couldn't even remember who I was night to night, and you'd wake up every time I tried to tell you you're a mutant. Stranger things have happened when a mutant's exited latency this far in life."

Erik hasn't touched him at all, and Charles doesn't know what to make of it. After the increasing intimacy between them, this stonewalling smacks of rejection, but as Erik grasps his shoulder, and lets his palm slide across the bone and down his arm, Charles sighs.

"Erik, let me help you, my friend."

"Charles," he exhales. **_This is something I have to do alone._**

 **_No, it isn't_ ** _if you insist. **I'm looking for you** don't leave (me)._

* * *

Despite Angel's offer to be a shoulder if he needed, he hasn't called her at all. He doesn't even know where she is in his contacts list. He searches under A but finds her under S for Salvadore.

He dials, and she picks up on the second ring.

"Charles." It's an opening.

"Can we talk?"

There's no mocking reply. "Do you want to meet in person?"

After a few minutes of negotiation, and fifteen minutes of waiting on Angel's part since he gets turned around by the way Howe merges into Eleventh St., they're at a cupcake shop. The chairs are wrought iron with plush white cushions. Pink curtains paint the walls and the tablecloths are the same shade. The cupcakes lie innocuously behind the glass shelf.

They're alone. Angel's still in her work uniform, complete with brown apron with lavender ruffles; Charles knows better than to comment. She sets a plate with a purple-frosted cupcake in front of him along with a fork and napkin.

"I'm the only clerk in right now," she assures.

He tells Angel some of it, she doesn't ask after more. He thinks Erik would appreciate that trait.

He asks what he wants to know most. "Why do I remember everything now?" And he sounds as lost as he is.

He expects Angel to reply _Because you're ready_ but she says, "Because you have to."

* * *

There's one other thing Charles remembers now.

At their weekly meeting, NatGeo is running in the background. Raven is blue but clothed, a concession to his prudish sensibilities. Her perfume and her voice -- talking about how David Attenborough would make this documentary way better -- are what he remembers.

As a commercial for _Taboo_ starts playing, Charles says, "I want to know why you pushed me."

Raven's eyes widen, her hand frozen with the remote in hand, midway to changing the volume. "Jesus, Charles, you can't just drop something on someone like that."

He must be projecting because she cringes.   "It's not like that."

"Then tell me what it _is_ like!"

"There's a prophet in the network -- she sees the future- - and she told me that if I wanted Erik to survive what would happen -- I knew him letting Shaw go was never going to happen," she grasps her arms, "I had to push you off that building." She quickly adds, "Of course I didn't want to _murder_ you, and I made sure I asked her about it, but she was adamant you'd survive and it was necessary."

He can read her sincerity, as well as a strange association with fairy tales ( _Fairytaleprincecharming, castles, horses, dragons, and princesses and happily ever afters_ ).

" _What?_ "

She shifts her feet out from under her, and her hair changes from straight to curly, her nails shifting to claws. "Look. When a prophet tells you something, you do it. Ours looks out for our best interests."

"Did everyone else know and just went along with it except me?" _Did Erik?_

"God! _No_." After a delay, in which Raven's eyes change to blue, she adds, "She told me it would help you too."

Charles' disbelief is written across his face.

"How am I supposed to trust you?"

"Do you trust Erik?"

The response is immediate. "Yes."

"Then you know he trusts me; trust in that."

Charles follows the skein of Erik's thoughts and thinks **_Raven_** and receives a flow of cool confidence.

"Alright."

* * *

Welcome back to KFSK. Have you all heard the latest development in this Bomber nonsense? There are signs of conflict between the Arsonist and his accomplice, causing the police to think the accomplice might really be a vigilante. And you know how the media is taking this? Like it's a bad thing. Well, I'm telling you, I hope this man is a vigilante. Our government has let us down once again, and the only hope is a God-fearing American who can put this threat to our country in the ground where he belongs. What do you think folks? Give me a call...

* * *

Charles can once again feel Erik against the edges of his mind. He casts out his net, and sets to find him.


	4. Chapter 4

Charles finds Erik sluggish. He's probably drugged; Erik never lets himself get this depleted. Again, Charles takes the closest mind, and tries to figure out where Erik is. The man ( _29, paralegal, having a midlife sexual crisis with the single dad across the street)_ frustratingly looks everywhere but the building, and if he doesn't look, he'll pass the building entirely.

He walks right by it, and Charles thinks, **_Look God damn it_** , and then, surprisingly, luckily, he sees the street signs in blue: Franklin and Stodourghty _._

Letting the man go, he grins at Raven. "Got it."

Raven high fives him. "We gotta move fast, but we also gotta take the time to plan _smart_. Shaw's not stupid. We'll start planning tomorrow morning. Until then..." She orders cheesecake bites in celebration and magnanimously only makes Charles pay the tip.

* * *

The next morning, they do their research. "No one better than Hank for this," Raven says after extricating herself from her bundle of blankets on the couch. Her brand of celebration lasted late into the night, at which point she proceeded to commandeer his sofa.

Raven drags Charles to Prior Hall, the dorm for continuing students and home of the science majors.

It turns out Hank really is Hank the TA. Hank only cracks the door open. He glances at Charles out of the corner of his eye.

"Errr, hi Charles, good to see you."

Raven nudges Charles away from the door and places herself in Hank's line of vision. "Come on, Hank, you gotta know Charles from one of your classes right? Be a little friendlier."

"How are you doing?" Hank asks.

Raven extricates her arm from Charles' and pushes her way past Hank and through the door.

"Roomie!" she declares like this is her room. "Wake up, and out the door!" She opens the blinds and smacks the lump under the sheets.

The roommate pokes a head of blond hair out and grumbles. " _Christ_ Hank, can't you control your girlfriend?" But he does get out of the bed, waddling right past Charles still bundled in blankets.

"We're not dating!" Hank calls into the hall.

Raven looks a bit put out, but sits herself in what must be Hank's chair and turns on his desktop.

"We need you to do some research," she states imperiously.

"Raven, couldn't this have waited?" Hank's looking nervously between her and his roomie (walking down the hallway, probably to crash in the rec room Charles feels).

"No." She swivels her chair around to face him. The moment Hank shuts the door, she turns blue. "You're the best, and we need the best."

Hank blushes, standing there in nothing but his boxers and large bunny slippers. **_Charles, tell him._**

"Ah, well, Hank, you see - "

Raven rolls her eyes and cuts right in. "Erik's got himself in deep trouble, and Charles and I are going to bail him out. We just need some info to be prepared."

Hank briefly meets Raven's gaze before looking away. "Raven, I don't want you doing anything dangerous..."

"It'll be less dangerous if you do your keyboard wizardry," she retorts.

Hank gives in and Charles would laugh if he knew it wouldn't mortify Hank. Raven gives Hank back his chair.

"What are you looking for?" He's typing on his computer, and brought up some sort of search engine. He absently throws a half-eaten Twinkie into the trash.

"A man named Shaw, anything you know about him. Especially if it relates to Erik." Charles interjects.

Hank's whole body tenses. "What is it?" Charles asks apprehensively. Hank adjusts his glasses.

He looks just to the left of Charles' ear. "Everyone knows Erik's looking for Shaw. What people not in the community don't know is that he's also the Bomber and a mutant."

Raven hisses. "Knew it. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Erik didn't, so I..."

Charles looks back and forth between the two. Hank looks him in the eye now. "It means this is dangerous. Shaw's mutation is in relation to explosions, and Raven's mutation isn't helpful..."

"Charles can't help," she interjects. "He's too new."

"Raven, that's rude..."

"There isn’t time for pleasantries."

Hank turns back to Charles. "Charles, listen, you really should wait for more mutants to come and help you."

Charles shakes his head. "I don't think we have time. We need to do it now." Erik's resignation was tinged with thoughts of dying, and to lose Erik is -

"Then you'll have to telepath Erik to see if he can tell you a good time to come, when Shaw isn't there."

"Right," Charles says faintly.

"You should also let Angel know," Hank continues confidently. Charles can tell he's settling into his familiar role as a teacher. "She can come in and try to help bail you guys out. She's the only mutant you know who has any offensive mutation. And she's the only other mutant who'll trust you enough to come help you. I'm useless in situations like this." Hank looks chagrined. "Secrecy has its drawbacks at times like this; you need other mutants to vouch for you if you don't know them, and that takes time.

"Wait, how do you know all of this?"

"I thought it was obvious," he replies sourly, stealing a glance at Raven. "I'm a mutant."

"Nah Hank, no need to be shy. He's talking about your super smart admin-ness."

"I run a lot of the admin side of things in this area, so I know a lot about everybody. Including your telepathy and when it started manifesting," Hank admits peevishly.

"And you left me to Angel's care?"

"She's good. Besides, did you really want to listen to a kid younger than you?" He sighs. "Get along. There isn't much I can find on Shaw that isn't well known enough that Raven can't tell you, but I'll let you know if I find anything." He turns back to his computer, and Charles takes it as a dismissal.

 ** _Thanks_**. Hank lifting his hand away from the keyboard is the only concession he gets.

* * *

Raven informs him Shaw has some sort of mutation that absorbs energy and has been around for as long as anyone can remember. The only way someone could kill him was the old-fashioned way, with a blade. Erik's fascination for making knives makes sense now.

Angel's on his side. When Charles asks for her advice, she says, "Don't fuck up."

There's nothing left to do, so Raven spends another night at Charles'. They rest up, and come 5:01 a.m. Charles lets Erik in on the plan.   Erik sounds better, and Charles is relieved.

Half an hour later -- it would've been twenty if not for morning traffic congesting the streets -- Raven is careening through the streets in her stick-shift Volvo, Charles riding shotgun and Angel in the backseat. They find the cross streets, and circle the block until Charles recognizes the building.

"That one," he says, tapping his finger against the window.

She cuts the engine around the corner, and then they wait for Erik to say when.

 ** _Now_** _think he's gone? Has to be. Hope,_ Charles _._

They already agreed Raven would keep the car running for their escape. Not stopping to tell Raven, Charles sprints into the building, following the strength of Erik's mind.

He finds him in what used to be the boiler room. He tugs the light on, and there the man is. At last, in the flesh. Real.

"Hello." Charles can't think of anything else to say. The room's covered in strange plastic sheeting everywhere, and Charles unties Erik.

"Hello," Erik replies with wonder. And even though he's dirty and beaten, he's still the best thing Charles' seen.

"I came for you."

Charles holds out his hand, and when Erik takes it, it feels like a kiss.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last Erik." Charles beams.

Even in his state, Erik snorts at his cheer.

"Let's get you out of here, shall we? Raven's parked out front."

"You let Raven drive?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Have you felt the way she drives?"

Charles grins and begins to make more conversation, but Erik cuts him off. "Shaw knows about us. He has a helmet that blocks telepaths, that's why I couldn't reach you. Emma Frost is returning, and he thought it more important to protect himself. You coming is a probability he's thought of."

* * *

Shaw does come and then there is a choice to make.

The two are making their way down the stairs when they're separated by rough hands. There's plenty of screaming and panic, and Charles tries to call for help, but he's too panicked to do it right. He's not too sure what's stopping Erik from using his mutation. Charles gets dragged up flights of stairs and thrown to the feet of a man with expensive shoes.

Charles looks up at the man in his well-tailored three-piece suit and strange helmet. It's just the two of them.

"Why hello, Charles," the man says. "You don't mind if I call you that do you? I know Erik so well, and seeing as you do too, it feels appropriate." He smiles unassumingly but Charles is afraid.   He bends over and pats his cheek. "We'll just wait for him; he'll be up in just a moment looking for you."

"He'll come with help."

Shaw smiles indulgently, petting Charles head, running his fingers through his hair. "No, he won't. People have done more foolish things for lesser reasons. In the mean time." He yanks Charles to his feet, and delivers a savage kick to his knee.

Charles is still howling in pain when Erik comes bounding up the stairs, breathing heavily. Shaw brings Charles to his feet once more and takes a step back. Charles screams, his knee unable to take his weight, and he might have bitten his mouth because it tastes like copper. The wind whistles by and Charles wonders how close to the edge they are.

"Hello, Erik. It's been awhile hasn't it? Have you been looking forward to our reunion as much as I have? I think you have."

Shaw flips Charles so he's dangling over the edge of the building, Charles feels his heels slipping, his toes hanging off the edge; Shaw's hands on his shoulders are the only thing holding him.

Shaw's breath presses against Charles' cheek, but Charles dares not look at him. "I heard on the news he survived a fall like this once. Rather _miraculous_ , wouldn't you say? Do you think he'll survive another?"

"Don't do this," Erik grits. Charles would turn to watch, but he can barely keep his balance as it is.

Charles tries to push at Shaw's mind, but there's nothing at all where it should be, nothing but a void. Charles stills.

Shaw tuts. "I wouldn't do that." He pushes Charles a bit more, and now his heart is pounding through his whole body.

"You see," Shaw says pleasantly, "I was hoping we could take our time with pleasantries, but I'm afraid I must be going. Hmm, I see you found metal somewhere. That's terribly naughty of you Erik, making a knife when I've been giving you your doses every day. Well, naughty boys get punished, but I'll be generous. I'll give you a choice instead. On the count of 3, you can either kill me or save Charles." Shaw's fingers gouge into Charles' cheeks and he breathes heavily through his nose.

"No."

"Ah, well, I so hoped you'd say that. One." Charles looks down at the busy, dizzying city.

"Two." His heart beats loud in his ears, like his head's going to explode.

"Three."

He pushes, and Charles can hear Erik running across the roof, but Charles can't see what's happening because he's falling once more.

It's much like the first time, physically: the inability to breathe, the pound of adrenaline. There's no sudden explosion of minds against his, no help to be sought; he doesn't know how to reach like he did, not yet, not ever.

Charles falls, and this time, he expects to die. He isn't afraid, he's done this before after all. He feels rather peaceful in fact.

He feels Erik clawing through his mind, trying to find his balance amid all the memories and feelings. He's burning through the drugs in his system, Charles can feel Erik's powers returning to him. He can feel Erik pulling memories through him and releasing them one by one, like balloons on a summer day.

_The pool. Fingers through hair. That quiet, sleepy, contented smile._

And then Erik is flying towards him, really flying, and Charles is both amazed and overjoyed to see he's figured it out.

Erik holds him and they tumble across the concrete, earning bruises and scrapes. Charles screams, his knee sending lightning through him. Erik's hands are all over Charles, and he wants to make a comment about how he isn't that easy. Erik clutches his face.

"You _idiot_. How could you think I would let you die?"

"You wanted him more than me," Charles says serenely as he can. Maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe it's a quirk of his telepathy.

 _"Fuck Charles._ "

"You're a red-head." He plays with the fringe falling free of the gel.

 ** _Strawberry-blond_** is the peevish reply. "Dye." **_Is this really what you're thinking about now?_**

"Mmm, look better brown."

"I didn't give _you_ a hard time for being a blond." Erik's forming a splint from the surrounding metal.

Charles smiles up goofily. "I see you finally figured it out."

Erik looks at him, confused, and Charles knows the moment he figures it out because his face clouds with irritation.

"Yes. But I'm more worried about _you_ right now." Erik finishes the splint, and Charles yells.

"How did you do it?" Charles insists as Erik maneuvers his arms beneath him. **_I want to know; we tried so hard..._**

Erik licks his lips. "It felt like letting go."

"Mmmm. Do you feel any better?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

Erik hesitates. "Do you?"

"Perfect."

There are still things to be done. Shaw is somewhere out there ( _Until we meet again, little Erik. Don't waste the gift I've given you._ ), Charles does not know how long Erik will stay. Charles is all tangled up in Erik, but perhaps Erik is too -- when Erik leaves, maybe Charles will be the point he returns to ( _and calls home_ ).

For now, Erik stands, lifting Charles in his arms. Raven's rushing out of the car to meet them, face full of worry, and Angel's dialing 9-1-1 on her phone, looking entirely unphased.

Charles lets Erik carry him to their friends, and to the waking city, dipped red in the morning light.


	5. Playlist

1 [Slow Dancing in a Burning Room](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk9-qH5fyTU) / John Mayer  
2 [If I Ain't Got You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju8Hr50Ckwk) / Alicia Keys  
3 [Songbird](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljySrnvsI1o) / Glee  
4 Heaven (acoustic) / Emeli Sandé (Live Jools Holland)  
5 Heart Station (Utada Hikaru, English cover) / Mitchel Matsuzak  
6 Ain't No Sunshine / Christina Christian  
7 [If I Ain't Got You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3msarrWBY) (live) / Alicia Keys  
8 [Cruz ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL-JHETEJ2Y)/ Christina Aguilera  
9 [Little Talks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I) / Of Monsters and Men  
10 [Picture This (Interlude)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZjfrg5mv8) / Danity Kane  
11 [Starstruck](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_VxMatc9uE) / Lady Gaga ft. Space Cowboy  
12 [The Sunlit Garden](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQzaHyVqHag) / Utena OST  
13 [Soldier of Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5_rTCi-Bo) / Sade  
14 [Alegria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68483tVx0eA) / Cirque du Soleil  
15 [The Garden of Everything](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rpf5ZPVaVk) / Steve Conte and Maaya Sakamoto  
16 [Beatrix and the Lakes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2YHXMs1Xl4) / Peter Rabbit and Friends OST  
17 [Fall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr4PSpUh2X0) / Brandy  
18 [Unfinished Sympathy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWmrfgj0MZI) / Massive Attack  
19 [Un-thinkable (I'm Ready)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuGQUZJot8) / Alicia Keys  
20 [Say You'll Go](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijLRVqTzZI) (live) / Janelle Monae  
21 [57821](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Ooht-p_Jo) (Janelle Monae cover) / Genghis Barbie  
22 [Come as You Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c55VFdKcyvQ) (Nirvana cover) / Rebecca Loebe  
23 [Harlem's Nocture](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxnzbFB-sH4) / Alicia Keys  
24 [Fallin ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urdlvw0SSEc)/ Alicia Keys  
25 More Than Words / Maaya Sakamoto  
26 Packing / Persuasion (2007) OST  
27 [Dragon Wings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHwl_TFMW8) / Keiko Matsui  
28 [Impossible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWdrO4BoCu8) / Shontelle  
*BONUS [Once Upon a Dream](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjegSDxnVX0) / Sleeping Beauty OST

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   1. Toni Morrison's _Song of Solomon_ is responsible with this preoccupation with flight and what makes it possible.
>   2. Sherman Alexie's _Indian Killer_ resulted in the radio broadcast section.
>   3. Wade Robson's "[Burning Room](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk9-qH5fyTU)" because when I saw [](https://celadonite.livejournal.com/profile)[**celadonite**](https://celadonite.livejournal.com/) 's artwork, this is what I thought of, and the rooftop dance resulted.
>   4. [](https://tomoyoichijouji.livejournal.com/profile)[**tomoyoichijouji**](https://tomoyoichijouji.livejournal.com/) who was my proxy for claiming.  Without her, I wouldn't gotten an entirely different set of art.
>   5. [](https://purplebloom500.livejournal.com/profile)[**purplebloom500**](https://purplebloom500.livejournal.com/) was utterly invaluable with her lightning fast beta skills and letting me send email after email with questions.
>   6. [](https://xmrb-support.livejournal.com/profile)[**xmrb_support**](https://xmrb-support.livejournal.com/) were there for all the instant answers I needed. 
>   7. More specifically from chat [spicedpiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/pseuds/spicedpiano), [](https://aeshna-uk.livejournal.com/profile)[**aeshna_uk**](https://aeshna-uk.livejournal.com/) , [Cesare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/works), and [Afrocurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl) helped with the delineation of accidental and purposeful telepathy.
>   8. And of course, [](https://celadonite.livejournal.com/profile)[**celadonite**](https://celadonite.livejournal.com/) for the concrit, the suggestion to use multimedia, the banners, and most of all for the inspiring art.  <3
> 

>   * If you want the logic behind how the art influenced the fic: I saw the red piece and instantly thought of ["Burning Room](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk9-qH5fyTU)", so I wanted Charles and Erik slow dancing on the roof top.  And the only way I could think of to make it happen was to have it happen in a dream.  As for the blue piece, I kept thinking it looks like the dendrites were branching out, and that was how Charles' telepathy functions.  It also looked like he was falling, so that plus telepathy equaled Charles' fall activating his telepathy.
> 

> 
>       8.  Finally, to you the readers!


End file.
